The present invention pertains to a rotary buffing or finishing device adapted to be attached to and driven by a powered operating tool or the like and, more particularly, to a buffing ball made at least partly of a plastic foam piece which is slit and compressed to form a ball for buffing, polishing and finishing a painted surface. Alternately, compressible non-foam materials may also be used.
Foam buffing pads are well known in the art and typically comprise circular, generally flat-faced pads attached to a circular backing plate which, in turn, is attached to a rotary or orbital powered operating tool. It is also known to make foam buffing pads by attaching a dense array of individual plastic foam fingers to a backing substrate such as is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,938,515. It is also known to make a buffing ball from a stack of thin circular layers of a cloth material, such as felt, that are slit radially inwardly from their outer edges and clamped axially such that the layers take on a somewhat spherical shape, when rotated, comprising an array of cloth fingers. The ball is mounted for rotation on the axis along which the cloth layers are pressed together to provide what is more accurately described as a buffing cylinder.
Because the prior art buffing ball is made of individual thin layers of cloth that are only slightly compressible and are stacked and clamped axially along the center axis, there is a tendency for relative rubbing movement between the layers which can result in fretting and wearing of the cloth. Also, because the individual layers are inherently thin, there is also a tendency for the fingers to tear more easily from the body of the cloth layer.